Where Do I Begin?
by roses-sunflowers
Summary: A series of drabbles about Rose and her part-human Doctor as they struggle to get used to each other and their new lives in the months following their kiss at Bad Wolf Bay (not necessarily in chronological order).
1. A Spoonful of Sugar

The first time Rose sees the part-human Doctor wearing glasses, she stops breathing.

He's sprawled awkwardly over an armchair, his long legs dangling over the side and his back curled up tightly as he rests a well-worn copy of Mary Poppins on his lap. As she stands frozen in the doorway, he wrinkles his nose at something on the page, causing his glasses to slip. He frowns, pushing them back up and sighing quietly, and Rose feels a sharp breath finally escape her at how _familiar_ it seems. He looks up at the sound, smiling widely when he sees her.

"Rose!" he says excitedly, stumbling slightly as he unfolds himself and stands up from the chair. "They have Mary Poppins in this world. It's brilliant! Well, of course it is, but I just wasn't sure that they'd have it here, with it being a parallel universe you can never tell what'll stay the same, given the different time streams and, well, the evident lack of _me_, but they do and—" he stops abruptly, staring at her. "Are you alright?" he says, leaning toward her with a slight frown.

She steps backwards, trying to ignore the flash of hurt that passes over his face as she does so. "I—" she shakes her head and bites her lip. She takes another step backwards. "Um. I'm fine. Sorry to have bothered you." She flees up the stairs.

She hears him running up behind her and heads for her bedroom, running in and slamming the door.

"Rose!" he shouts, banging on the door. "Rose, what's wrong?"

"I—" she chokes, unable to think of an excuse. She feels tears begin to form and swipes at her eyes, sniffling slightly.

"Rose?" he says softly. "Will you let me in, please?"

She cracks the door slightly and quickly walks to the bed, sitting with her back to him as he enters.

"Nothing—" her voice breaks. She clears her throat, her cheeks flushing as her eyes fill up. "Nothing's wrong."

He sits lightly on the bed, gently placing a hand on the small of her back. "Is there—" he hesitates. "Rose, let me help you. Whatever it is that's wrong, I can help. I'm the Doctor."

She turns to him, suddenly furious. "No, you're not!" she yells, throwing his hand off of her. "You sit there like you know everything with your stupid long legs and great hair and those _damn_ glasses and think you _are_ the Doctor just because you bloody look like him and can finish the sentences he won't—" she shudders, tears dripping down her cheeks. She rubs them away angrily, refusing to look at him.

"Rose," he whispers, his hands clenching by his sides. "I—" he swallows heavily. "I _am_ the Doctor, Rose. I'm just not _him_." He sighs quietly. "I'll take the glasses off, if that's what you want."

"That's not the point," Rose says, still looking away.

"No, it's not," he mumbles. "But the glasses are what made you remember."

Rose wipes her face on her sleeve, sniffling.

"I just—" he stops. "Tell me what he would have done, Rose. I don't know what I'm supposed to do to make this right, so tell me what—" he takes a quick breath, "what the Doctor would have done."

She chokes on a laugh, picturing the Doctor's face. "Oh, he wouldn't have the first clue," she whispers.

"I—what?"

She laughs wetly. "The Doctor never quite knew what to do when I was crying."

The Doctor's duplicate huffs. "Well, that's rubbish."

Rose starts giggling at his aggravated expression and can't stop, bursting into peals of laughter.

He stares at her, confused. "What?"

"Your face," she grins.

"Oi! What's so funny about my face?"

Somehow that makes it even funnier and she laughs so hard that her stomach starts to hurt and she has to grip his arm for support.

He sniffs. "I have a wonderful face, Rose Tyler."

"That you do," she smiles, looking up at him. "With the glasses, too—even though you don't really need them."

He gasps. "Who told you?"

"Nobody told me. I saw you reading and walking around without glasses all the time and you seemed perfectly fine."

He huffs. "Well, they make me look more clever."

She smiles. "I suppose you can keep them, then."

"Really?" he asks, his eyes brightening.

"Really," she says softly. "You are the Doctor, after all." He smiles proudly and she smirks. "It was obvious from the fact that you didn't know what to do when I cried and how offended you got when I brought it up."

"Oi!"


	2. Illusions We Can Possess

He feels it about an hour after Donna and the Doctor left, like a sinkhole in his mind- the loss of a telepathic connection.

"Um—" He faintly hears Rose's voice. "Are you okay?" He looks up—when did he sit on the ground? He had been standing up just a second ago...

Rose is standing right next to him. He blinks rapidly, confused—her voice had sounded as though she was several metres away.

"I'm alright," he says, because he is, and he knows that's what she wants to hear. She doesn't want to deal with a man with the same face as the man she's loved for years and who is almost the same person but not quite—well, he thinks so, anyway.

He's not sure who he is yet; he's only been alive for a couple hours. Well, he was alive before then, sort of—Donna just sparked him into being... _Instant Doctor_, he thinks, grinning. _Just add Donna._

Donna. He closes his eyes tightly. His other half is missing and _how am I supposed to know what to do now?_,and he knows that she would've died if she'd been allowed to remember but oh, how he wants to be selfish and cling to the small fragments of guidance he had from her—the Doctor and Rose are trying, he knows, but they both shut him out because he reminds them of what they can't have—and he's_ sorry_ because there's nothing he can do to fix it, and now Donna can't remember how extraordinary she truly is and she's gone back to being the woman who misses everything—

"Mum!" he hears Rose calling. Her voice seems distorted, as though he's underwater. "Mum, he's gone white and he's started sweating. I don't know-" She's crying, he thinks dimly. Perhaps that's it- he's submerged in her tears. It would be strange to drown in someone else's tears... He's certainly got enough of his own for that, he thinks wryly. Are they his own? They're the Doctor's, certainly... But that's not really the same thing—is it?

"Talk to me, you massive idiot." Jackie. _When did she get here?_, he wonders. "What's going on? You're scaring the hell out of us."

He tries to move his lips to explain the hole in his head to her but it doesn't seem to work. _I'm speechless—Donna would be astonished_, he thinks. There's no crackle of amusement from the space where Donna used to be in his head, and he feels a sharp gasp escape him as his eyes fly open and he starts to tremble.

"Fuck," he hears Rose whisper. He feels her arms wrap around him and her hands petting his back gently and he wants to tell her _Dame Rose, you're being frightfully improper, what would Queen Victoria think?_ just to get a laugh out of her but his mouth still isn't working _how do I get it to work I don't understand_ so he turns his face into her neck and focuses on making his breaths slow and even until the world goes fuzzy _blurred like forgotten memories _around the edges and he slowly falls unconscious with Rose's hands still spread over his back.


End file.
